... On the fifteenth of April they (the French) came up with the English in a field near a village named Formigny, between Carentan [Triviers] and Bayeux. And when the said English saw and perceived them, they put themselves in order of battle, and sent very hastily for the said Matthew Gough, who had left them that morning to go to Bayeux, and he immediately returned. And then the French and the English were one in the presence of the other, for the space of three hours, skirmishing. And in the meantime the English made large holes and trenches with their daggers and swords before them, in order that the French and their horses should stumble if they attacked them. And at the distance of a long bowshot behind the English there was a little river between them, with a great abundance of gardens full of various trees, as apples, pears, elms, and other trees; and they encamped in this place because they could not be attacked in the rear. And in the meantime the lord of Richmond, Constable of France, the lord of Laval, the lord of Loheac, marshal of France, the lord of Orval, the marshal of Bretaigne, the lord of Saint-Severe, and many others set out from Triviers, where they had slept that night, and joined them, to the number of three hundred lances, and the archers. And when the said English saw them come, they left the field, and the troops marched and came to the river to place it behind them; for they were afraid of the Constable's company, who had slept the night at a village named Triviers, and had put himself in order of battle upon the arrival of the said English at a wind-mill above the said Formigny. And then marched the troops of the said lord of Clermont and his company, in which were from five to six hundred lances and the archers, and they charged the said English, as did also those of the said Constable, who crossed the river by a ford and a little bridge of stone. And there they attacked the English on both sides very bravely, so that in the end they discomfited them close by the said river. And there there were killed, by the report of the heralds who were there, and of the priests and good people who buried them, three thousand seven hundred and seventy-four English. A FATHER'S COUNSEL (+April 30, 1450+). =Source.=--_Paston Letters_, vol. i., No. 91. ["Whoever has read this affecting composition will find it difficult to persuade himself that the writer could have been either a false subject or a bad man."--+Lingard.+] _The Duke of Suffolk to his Son._ +My dear and only well-beloved Son+,